Workshop Description

Pharmacometric reports typically contain a large number of figures, tables, text files, in-line text, and numerical values that have been generated during the conduct of analyses. While these results are often generated in a script-based manner, reporting of these results is complicated by corporate requirements to use Microsoft Word and a specific in house-style guide, requiring scientists to copy, paste, and format results manually in a time-consuming and error-prone process.

Wilkins and Jonsson [Reproducible pharmacometrics, PAGE Meeting, Glasgow, Scotland, 2013] presented an approach to Reproducible Pharmacometrics that allowed a full end-to-end scripting of the analysis and the creation of publication-ready reports. Their solution was based on LaTeX, knitr, and R. While this approach is very powerful, LaTeX can be perceived as a cumbersome language. More importantly, the output is a PDF rather than a Word document, which often does not comply with corporate publication policy. In recent years, R Markdown has been developed, allowing to use the more lightweight language Markdown, and RStudio supporting the conversion to Word. However, no R Markdown support is available for critical Word features, such as cross-references, figure and table captions, and choice of more complex Word styles, impeding the generation of submission-ready Word documents.

In this workshop, a framework using extended Markdown language is presented that overcomes the shortcomings of R Markdown and leverages open source tools to allow the creation of submission-ready Word reports, using any desired Word style, and to automatically integrate analysis results without the need for manual copy and paste.

The workshop is designed as a hands-on tutorial, allowing participants to work through all examples under guidance of the presenters. All material (slides, example reports, R code, required R libraries, and additional software) will be shared with the participants at least 2 weeks before the workshop. In case a participant would like to have hands-on experience during the workshop, a laptop (preferably Windows) with an R installation should be brought to the workshop.

Presenters

Andrijana Radivojevic, PhD, IntiQuan GmbH (external)

Andrijana has years of international experience in biotech and big pharma. She has contributed to programs in all phases of drug development, spanning various therapeutic areas and pharmacometric activities. She is currently leading an industry-wide effort for Data Standards in Pharmacometrics, sponsored by ISoP’s Best Practices and Standards Committee and aiming towards an improved quality and efficiency for data preparation. She is working as an independent consultant, focusing on the business development for companies and personal & professional growth for great scientists.

Henning Schmidt, PhD, IntiQuan GmbH

Engineer by training with a long background in modeling of a wide range of general linear and non-linear systems (automotive & process industry, biological, physiological, and pharmacological systems), using both modeling and simulation results as a basis for impactful quantitative support of decision making in large and small, early and late phase drug development projects. Developer of several open source tools for modeling and simulation across Pharmacometrics, Systems Pharmacology, and Systems Biology.

Registration

Workshop location: The workshop will be held at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort near San Diego, CA, US, which is the venue for the ACoP9 meeting.

Workshop fee: Regular fee 300 USD. This includes workshop material, and coffee break. Students/Academia/Government/Non-profit employees may enroll at a fee of 150 USD.

Registration: This is a post-meeting workshop that requires registering for the ACoP 2018 meeting. Please register ASAP in view of the limited course capacity.